The hellish shootings in Atlanta have unleashed fierce debates combining questions about sex, sin, salvation, repentance, race and various combinations of all of those hot-button topics.

The debates center, of course, of statements by Robert Aaron Long — the suspect in the killing of eight people, including six Asian women — and his complicated and troubled history as a young member of Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Ga., a Southern Baptist congregation.

Eventually, court testimony will provide hard facts about this case. At this point, all the evidence is that Long was raised as a conservative Christian, was active in his church youth group and that he abandoned his faith and then, quite literally, all hell broke loose in his personal and family life. Long has said that a “sex addiction” drove him to frequent massage parlors and his family, apparently, sent him to a Christian counseling center for treatment. His conservative Christian parents “threw him out of the house” the night before the shootings, according to reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere.

Like I said, on-the-record details will emerge. Right now, I want to raise a journalism question or two about coverage of the SBC congregation that is involved in this story. What do we know about this church and, well, how do we know what we know? One Post story notes the following, quoting a solid, factual source:

The evangelical congregation’s minister, the Rev. Jerry Dockery, is an energetic preacher who advocated for a socially conservative brand of Christianity that, as the church bylaws put it, views “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex” as “sinful and offensive to God.”

This isn’t shocking material, if you know anything about traditional forms of Christianity. It would be easy to find specific quotations from recent Catholic popes — including Pope Francis — condemning behaviors such as these, and more.

This congregation is also connected to several doctrinally conservative organizations or movements in SBC life, such as Founders Ministries. All of this leads me to a specific sermon reference discussing the end of the world and Christian teachings about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Oh, and if you stop and think about it, this includes the church’s pastor — indirectly — offering a warning about Christians worshipping political leaders such as Donald Trump.

Say what?

Here is the context, in a Post story with this headline: “Christian leaders wrestle with Atlanta shooting suspect’s Southern Baptist ties.” A key source is Brett Cottrell, “who led the youth ministry at Crabapple from 2008 to 2017.” That’s the time period when Long was known to be active in this congregation. Then there is this fascinating passage, which created some heated discussion on Twitter:

Cottrell said he did not know whether Long still attends the church or when he last attended services. According to a video that was captured by The Post before it was deleted, on Sunday the church’s pastor, the Rev. Jerry Dockery, gave a sermon on the apocalypse. Christ was coming soon, Dockery said, and the world must be ready.

“We’ve had, what, 45 presidents in our brief history as a nation? How many other kings around the world? How many other rulers have sat upon thrones, claiming to be in charge?” he asked. “The King is coming again.”

When Christ returns, Dockery said, he will wage war against those who have rejected his name.

“There is one word devoted to their demise,” the pastor said. “Swept away! Banished! Judged. They have no power before God. Satan himself is bound and released and then bound again and banished. That great dragon deceiver — just that quickly — God throws him into an eternal torment. And then we read where everyone — everyone that rejects Christ — will join Satan, the Beast and the false prophet in hell.”

It is not uncommon for pastors to preach on the apocalypse, and it’s unclear whether Long heard the pastor’s teachings Sunday.

According to that Dockery sermon, the authority of all kings, presidents and earthly leaders are secondary, in the light of 2,000 years of Christian teachings about the ultimate authority of Jesus. I think that the number “45” is interesting, in terms of that reference to American presidents, since that would include president No. 45 — Trump.

It’s appropriate that the story notes: “It is not uncommon for pastors to preach on the apocalypse, and it’s unclear whether Long heard the pastor’s teachings Sunday.”

But it’s “unclear” that Long has cut his ties to this church and the faith that he claimed in the past? At this point, what evidence exists that any of those faith ties still bind in the case of this troubled and, from the church’s point of view, sin-sick individual?

I would also like to join others in asking: Why is this sermon about the Second Coming relevant to news coverage of Long and his alleged deeds? As my longtime friend Rod “Live Not By Lies” Dreher said, in reaction post:

The story says — correctly — that pastors preach on the apocalypse all the time, and the reporters don’t even know if the suspect was in church to hear that sermon. But they’re still going to bring it up. Why on earth would they do that, if not to connect a bog-standard Baptist sermon about the End Times to the murderous mindset of a man who the paper’s reporters don’t even know for sure was in church that day! 

The story goes on to talk about how the murders might be connected to conservative Southern Baptist theology. There are something like 16 million Southern Baptists in America. About half of them are men. Eight million men have been exposed to some degree to conservative Southern Baptist teachings. … Does it even occur to these journalists and commentators that the problem here is not necessarily Southern Baptist theology, but a depraved young man? Of course not! Anything to destroy one’s culture war enemies.

Here is my main point.

It is completely valid for journalists to dig into websites, documents and sermon files linked to this congregation. The question, however, is whether to goal of this research is to yield specific information about the issues that appear to be involved in this tragedy — such as ideas and materials that may have shaped Long’s beliefs on racial prejudice against Asian Americans and his brokenness, in terms of his struggles with sexual sins.

Are there printed materials linked to this congregation — and even movements associated with it — that address these topics? Are there sermons or lesson materials that appear to support a heretical stance that women are somehow to blame for this man’s sexual sins (as opposed to his own weaknesses and choices) and that he needed to use violence to eliminate these temptations?

There are fierce and complicated debates on these topics. I know, from my own background as a former Southern Baptist, that there are some conservative Christian leaders who have gone overboard and have used conservative teachings on sexuality to manipulate their followers, while hiding their own hellish activities and sins of the flesh.

There are decades of these cases, but it’s impossible to overlook recent coverage of scandals involving the famous apologist Ravi Zacharias. For people from my generation, many of these arguments revolved around the life and work of Bill Gothard.

It’s not enough to say that this or that conservative congregation, or counseling center, or parachurch ministry is “evangelical” and, thus, the public can assume that Christian doctrines were used in manipulative ways. A pastor’s conservative sermon the Last Judgement does not offer a shred of evidence suggesting that his congregation has somehow advocated warped, dangerous doctrines on race and sex.

Ponder this equation: Journalists cannot assume that a specific evangelical flock advocates dangerous doctrine X, simply because there are experts (progressive evangelicals even) who insist that all evangelicals teach dangerous doctrine X and, thus, we know that dangerous doctrine X causes broken, manipulated individuals to do hellish things.

At some point, journalists need to find specific people advocating specific ideas and actions — using research methods that are deeper than second-hand reports and the convictions of hostile experts on one side of fights about the Sexual Revolution.

Let’s turn this around. It is wrong, for example, for conservative activists to take the actions and beliefs of LGBTQ extremists and then attribute those beliefs and actions to everyone on the doctrinal left. It’s wrong to say that all people who back abortion rights support all of the words and actions of the fringe leaders associated with that cause.

At some point, journalists need first-hand sources (documents and audio recordings do help) that indicate that specific actions and words can be linked to specific leaders and their flocks.

This is basic journalism ethics.

Let me give you a mirror-image example (some background history here and then here) that I mentioned the other day on Twitter:

How is this kind of journalism equation supposed to work in the Atlanta case?

Stay tuned. And be careful out there.

MAIN IMAGE: Orthodox Christian icon of the Last Judgement.